


three towns, five towns, twenty towns

by Caisar



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 21:43:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13667877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caisar/pseuds/Caisar
Summary: threads, barely there





	three towns, five towns, twenty towns

**i.**

You wordlessly agree to a night in bed and breakfast in the morning.

He doesn’t stick around for the latter.

 

 

**ii.**

_I owe you breakfast_ , you tell him the next time you drop by for a beer—or so is your excuse.

He smiles; a crooked, playful thing. _Buy me a drink after shift and we’re square._

**iii.**

After the third—or fourth, maybe the fifth—morning, you stop getting surprised at waking up to a cold bed in an empty flat. Disappointment is another matter entirely.

 

 

**iv.**

There’s no pattern to the nights that he appears at your door; you looked. He is as likely to come knocking after a Saturday-night-come-Sunday-morning, all sweaty and exhausted, as he is on a boring Tuesday that he gets to close up early.

By the time the rainclouds clear and start dripping white instead, you’ve seen each other both two days and two months apart.

 

 

**v.**

You’re in the middle of your yearly Lord of the Rings marathon when he shows up with a bottle of scotch; the brand that you allow yourself only on special occasions. _Holidays bonus_. _Figured you’d appreciate it._

You do, enough to share your pizza—it was too much for one person anyway—and not kick him out when he takes to voicing out the pre-battle speeches.

With enough booze in you, you even join in.

 

 

**vi.**

The next time he comes around, it’s with Star Wars DVDs, takeout and puppy eyes.

 

 

**vii.**

Just before he leaves, he pauses on the doorway, turns and—

 

 

**viii.**

On his birthday, you bake a cake with too much rum in it.

If you ask him to stay the night, it’s the cake’s fault.

If he listens, that’s on the cake, too.

 

 

**ix.**

He steals sausages off your plate and pays it all back in messy kisses. He steals covers off your bed and warms you with his body instead. He steals a shirt off your dresser and leaves in the dead of the night.

 

 

**x.**

The shopping list on the fridge is updated with _sausages_ and _coffee_ in a barely legible scrawl _._ You stop leaving pens lying around after that.

 

 

**xi.**

The next update says _MORE PENS,_ underlined three times in a sickly-sweet tone of purple.

 

 

**xii.**

He’s wearing the shirt. It’s too tight in the middle and too short on the arms. You can’t find it in you to get mad.

It takes half a bottle of beer to accept that this was a bad idea. You can’t find it in yourself to regret that, either. Instead, you sit there and watch him talk, laugh, show off with winks and quick grins squeezed between impressive moves and almost-fails.

You stay for two more after.

 

 

**xiii.**

Just before you leave, he turns to you; just a tilt of head, a soft look through his lashes, a coy curl of lips and—

 

 

**xiv.**

You don’t turn on the lights. You don’t open the door. You don’t even move until you can’t hear the rumble of his bike anymore.

 

 

**xv.**

The shirt—washed and ironed—shows up at your door two weeks later. He doesn’t.

 

 

**xvi.**

Day drinking has never been your thing, but here you are, in front of Bad Weather. It wasn’t a decision so much as a whim—one that you know you’ll regret soon enough. Oh well.

 _He’s not working tonight_ , the blond bartender with the wrist tattoos tells you, the curl of his lips straddling the line between a smile and a smirk.

_I only asked for a beer._

He shakes his head. _Go home_ , he says, not unkindly. You don’t question what made you listen until you’re already pulling away.

 

 

**xvii.**

He’s sitting on your front steps, a box on his lap and a scowl on his lips. It turns into a tentative smile when he sees you.

He lifts the box. _Harry Potter?_

You hand him the grocery bags to open the front door and pretend not to notice him peek into one. The grin that takes over his face is harder to ignore.

 

 

**xviii.**

The next update is a big smiley face, drawn in a cheerful green. You don’t cross it out.

 

 

**xix.**

When essays and exam papers start to cover every horizontal surface in the tiny room, he starts bringing pots full of food. They’re all terrible. You eat them anyway.

 

 

**xx.**

You wake up on the couch with a blanket over you. You don’t remember falling asleep.

 

 

**xxi.**

_I’m a street kid turned mechanic turned waiter turned bartender_ , he says as he helps you with the breakfast, hands fast and grip steady around the knife as he slices the peppers. _I’ve never learned how to stay still._

 

 

**xxii.**

Jumping awake at five in the morning is a special kind of torture during the summer break. You end up handing him a key. You don’t have anything worth stealing anyway.

 

 

**xxiii.**

His heart is pounding on your back, just the flimsy fabric of your shirt separating you two.

Lips right beside your ear, he draws in a deep breath and—

 

 

**xxiv.**

You make sure to fill his plate twice as much. He still steals your sausages.

 

 

**xxv.**

_So, uh,_ _have you tried that new diner in the corner?_

Your eyes flit down to the plate he’s barely touched. _Is this feedback?_

He chuckles; a halting, breathy thing. _God no; that’d be blasphemy. I just…_

His closes his mouth. Opens it. Bites his lip. Sighs.

_You just?_

He shrugs, settling on a tight-lipped smile. _Just wondered._

 

 

**xxvi.**

The next update is crossed out so violently, the words are unrecognizable. The only part you can make out is: _do you ever_

 

 

**xxvii.**

There’s a new addition on your keychain. You don’t even know which part of the city he lives in.

 

 

**xxviii.**

You’re pretty sure the next word is _think._

 

 

**xxix.**

Summer ends too soon.

 

 

**xxx.**

The small container of coffee you’d bought months ago is still sitting untouched in your pantry. You end up passing it along to a colleague as a holidays gift. Never did like the taste.

 

 

**xxxi.**

What? _Do you ever think about_ what?

 

 

**xxxii.**

The streetlights around the bar are littered with missing person posters. No one has seen him since September.


End file.
